Player Reload

Chapter 750 - 641: Wine and Sword

Li Cheng shook the newspaper in his hand, with the front-page headline about the completion of a multinational permanent lunar base and the helium-3 extraction site entering regular operations.

The second, third, and fourth edition news reported that the global population has exceeded 9.7 billion, with serious aging issues, and the caregiving robot industry is booming;

The ocean current regulation hub is operating well, and the Arctic ice cap has recovered by 200,000 square kilometers;

India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar still haven’t reached an agreement on the repatriation of 800,000 Rohingya refugees, and the Security Council held a closed-door meeting on this;

Uh... at this point in time, looking back at the newspaper from 2050 is quite nuanced.

The world situation is still generally peaceful, with localized chaos; population aging remains unresolved; united efforts still involve endless arguments.

People immersed in the tranquility of those days could never have imagined that within a day, AI would sweep across the globe, kicking entities like the United Nations, Wall Street, and the World Trade Organization to the curb.

"Wait a minute,"

Gray Rain couldn’t help but poke the paper, reading the news headline word by word, "What’s this about ’A Virtual Singer Exposed for Drug Use, All Commercial Endorsements and Concerts Canceled’?"

"What the heck."

Li Cheng flipped the newspaper. These virtual singers weren’t the likes of Hatsune Miku or Luo Tianyi,

but real-world deceased singers—

Their families and agencies input the singer’s images, diaries, psychological counseling records, and other materials into an AI model to create an intelligent entity with its own happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy, continuing their entertainment careers and making money hand over fist.

As long as computing power and memory capacity keep up, it’s getting very close to digital life.

The downside is that the intelligence is too smart, it might strike, throw tantrums, or even cause scandals.

"And yet, it’s Panda Burning Incense malware they’re on, classy."

Also an electronic lifeform, Gray Rain couldn’t help nodding, "Compared to this, Shockwave Virus has more residue, Ice River Trojan has a high sweetness, and Macro Virus has a strong aroma.

The people on Whale Song forums can’t go a day without a hit."

"You’re even critiquing it."

Li Cheng lightly flicked her on the forehead, put away the newspaper, casually tossed the lunchbox into the trash can, walked out of the restaurant, over a pool of vomit, "Let’s go."

According to the information provided by cyber monitoring department agents, the Otherworld visitor’s arrival point is located in a small city in California on the West Coast of America,

Combining it with the newspaper, it’s less than 100 kilometers from here.

Li Cheng and Gray Rain boarded the Edge Fighter, fastened their seatbelts, their expressions unusually calm.

He had a hunch that this map might not have been set up by Skytop Company or the United Government...

————

"Hiss, whoosh—"

Sunset Melting Gold took a deep drag of an e-cigarette labeled [Shockwave Virus], exhaled a puff of murky air, and casually passed the cigarette to Wanli Sealed Blade, who reached out for it.

Their situation was far from good; the former’s half body, including his right side of the head, had turned into a shattered mass of green data, continuously leaking 0s and 1s.

The latter was covered in wounds, his clothes soaked with blood, the blade in his hand chipped with countless notches, surrounded by a pile of broken swords.

Brother Blade had a hobby of collecting cold weapons, and before every Script Task, he would prepare a Hundred Treasure Bag.

Pearls, diamonds, gold, precious porcelain, all kinds of things—seeing if he could barter with the indigenous NPCs for some weapons.

He treated the weapons like collectibles, placing them in his study alongside figurines. The fact that this many had broken was evidence enough of the dire situation.

"Surrender,"

A stiff Chinese voice came from the front, as the Black Lv Bu planted his Fangtian Halberd into the ground, rustling the fallen leaves, and said in a deep voice, "There’s an old saying in the East, ’He who understands the times is a wise man.’"

"Why is a Black man speaking Chinese, and why do you have a major’s accent?"

Wanli Sealed Blade took another deep drag of the e-cigarette, coughing as he mocked.

Beside the Black Lv Bu stood two others: a white cowboy wearing a MAGA hat and Yu Meiqin from the King’s Road Expedition Team.

Each of the three exuded a pearl-like soft white glow—The United Government and Skytop Company had pulled out all the stops, temporarily assigning them several strong items perfectly compatible with the Power System to enhance their combat capability.

If it were just these three, the two killing field Transcendents might not necessarily lose. The problem lay in...

Projections, dozens of humanoid projections floated in mid-air.

Their faces were blurred, with an average Spiritual Power fluctuation of only 20% of the Transcendents, wearing uniforms clearly from various professional teams.

The Galaxy Battleship from the Commonwealth of Independent States; the Boha Dynasty from South America; the girl band from East Asia; the previous all-Chinese Guardian Divine Wings...

Every team had a glorious history and a fixed fanbase, and they were also rivals with each other.

They could maintain a facade of friendship during off-season, but come competition season, they all cursed for each other’s early elimination behind the scenes, saying, "Colleagues are all enemies, hoping the other dies."

But now, these professional players, or rather the power projections of professional players, have set aside all on-and-off-field grievances, working seamlessly to encircle and kill the Otherworld visitor.

"These power projections, they must be professional players remotely logging into their accounts, sneaking in under the guise of summoning Servant Demons.

Each only has about one-fifth of their normal combat power, relying on sheer numbers to win."

Wanli Sealed Blade blew out a puff of murky air, using his bloody hand to waft away the smoke, "Aren’t you worried about being reported by viewers for your illegal teaming?"

"First, the viewers might not even see it. The production team can edit, prioritizing the broadcast of other places’ happenings on the big screen.

Second, even if it’s broadcast, the official commentators’ glib tongues can twist the truth in front of billions of viewers, calling it some new Spell developed by the Professional Guilds."